[INDOLOGY] Correction and updates of Nirnay Sagar Fonts

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Dear Prof Krishnaprasad,

This evolution of your font is super to observe.

Madhav voted against the matra-gaps; I voted for them.  It's a hard choice,
but if you are really going for the look-and-feel of the NS fonts, then it
has to be admitted that they had such matra-gaps and that it's a key
feature of the NS fonts.  When viewing a page of writing from a normal
reading distance of 18" or so, these gaps are not really noticeable, but
subliminally - for me - they aid rapid, accurate reading.  I assume they go
back to scribal practice, where gaps between aksaras are normal.  I don't
know when the continuous matra line came into fashion.  Alessandro has made
an implicit argument for such a matra-gap, which is a feature of the
original font that he created for his 2015 Jayanta book
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1hj9zv2>:
[image: Screenshot from 2018-12-26 18-39-28.png]

Regarding the multiple forms of da etc., modern font technology can help.
OpenType includes some "alternates" or "contextual alternates" features
that allow the user (or auto-select) to select from multiple versions of a
glyph.  But I'm sure you know this.  And it's only certain advanced
text-setting programs like TeX that allow one to access such features
easily (e.g., through fontspec <https://ctan.org/pkg/fontspec?lang=en>,
manual part IV).

Such questions make me wish to consult Naik's classic work *Typography of
Devanagari <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/6241715>* (3 vols, 1971 rev. ed.),
but I've never had access to a copy of this rare publication.

Best,
Dominik

Best,
Dominik


--
Professor Dominik Wujastyk <http://ualberta.academia.edu/DominikWujastyk>
,

Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity
,

Department of History and Classics <http://historyandclassics.ualberta.ca/>
,
University of Alberta, Canada
.

South Asia at the U of A:

sas.ualberta.ca



On Sun, 23 Dec 2018 at 10:44, Krishnaprasad G via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear all
> Considering the suggestion of Prof Tim Cahill,  Prof Raik  Prof Madhav
> Deshpande and Prof Wujastak tried some alterations.  But the real challenge
> is, there is more than one design of each character, for instance, there
> are 4 types of letter द, at least two types of e matra, the below image
> shows two types of च्छ.
>
> also, I will try the i matra, probably 4 types required like in the below
> image
> [image: image.png]
>
> [image: IMG-20181223-WA0019.jpg]
> [image: IMG-20181223-WA0020.jpg]
>
> [image: IMG-20181223-WA0021.jpg]
>
> [image: IMG-20181223-WA0022.jpg]
>
> On Mon, Dec 3, 2018 at 10:31 PM Krishnaprasad G <
> krishnaprasadah.g at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> [image: IMG-20181202-WA0000.jpg]
>>
>> [image: IMG-20181201-WA0015.jpg]
>>
>> [image: IMG-20181201-WA0012.jpg]
>>
>> [image: IMG-20181203-WA0021.jpg]
>> [image: IMG-20181203-WA0022.jpg]
>>
>> [image: IMG-20181203-WA0023.jpg]
>>
>> [image: IMG-20181203-WA0024.jpg]
>>
>> [image: IMG-20181203-WA0027.jpg]
>>
>> [image: IMG-20181203-WA0028.jpg]
>>
>> [image: IMG-20181203-WA0029.jpg]
>>
>> [image: IMG-20181203-WA0030.jpg]
>>
>> Dear all
>> difficulty is selecting द cause the book has more than 5 designs
>>
>> Nirnaya Sagara fonts
>>
>>
>>
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